THE BOOKS TORE AT THE BERRY CENTER 2020 CATA LOG Dear Reader, Greetings from The Berry Center in Henry County, Kentucky, where the leaves have changed and are falling but the weather is unseasonably warm. At this time of year I would normally be working hard in preparation for our annual Kentucky Arts and Letters Day [KALD], a day where we invite our neighbors (near and far) to join us in celebrating the culture of our home place. At this event, readings from esteemed Kentucky authors are punctuated by good food, local art, and a deep sense of camaraderie. There are no strangers at KALD. The staff at The Berry Center will be missing this opportunity to gather with you in November and there’s an understandable feeling that we need togetherness this year more than ever before. Since we can’t achieve this in person, I hope you will enjoy looking through this catalogue at the books that we love and celebrate all year round; some are brand new and others are old favorites. Many of these books have offered us inspiration, guidance, comfort. They, and their authors, have been our help and friends. Some of these books have even been a grand escape. You can find all of these titles available at www.BerryCenterBookstore.com. If you plan to give any of these titles as a holiday gift, please place your order by December 15. Because of delays in the postal service we want to make sure your books are delivered in time. If you can’t find the book you’re looking for on our site, visit: bookshop.org/shop/berrycenterbookstore. Any book purchase you make from this site will directly support The Berry Center. Much nicer to shop with friends than a mega online retailer! And don’t forget, you can also support The Berry Center by giving the gift of membership this holiday season. To purchase a membership for a loved one visit www.berrycenter.org or call 502-845-9200. Gifted memberships will be delivered in a special Berry Center holiday card mailed out Decembe r 20, 2020. The deadline to purchase gifted memberships will be December 15, 2020." In friendship and with every good wish, Virginia Aguilar Director, Agrarian Culture Center and Bookstore The Berry Center [ feature ] The Great Interruption: The Story of a Famous Story of Old Port William and How It Ceased to be Told (1935-1978) Wendell Berry with Wood Engravings by Joanne Price Hardcover $38.00 – Limited Quantities Available Hand printed and bound by Larkspur Press, Monterey, KY “Billy Gibbs was as lively a boy no doubt as he could have been made by a strong body, excellent health, an active mind, and an alert sense of humor much like that of his father Grover Gibbs. Like about all the Port William boys of his time, his life was not as leisurely as he wished it to be. From the time he grew from the intelligence of a coon hound to that of a fairly biddable border collie, his parents, who were often in need of help, found work for him to do. This occasioned his next significant intellectual advance: recognition of the advantages of making himself hard to find. For the next several years, however, his parents, Beulah and Grover, were better at finding him than he was at hiding. From the time of their marriage in 1920 until Beulah inherited her parents’ little farm in 1948, they were tenant farmers, and Billy was always under some pressure to earn his keep. Needing to work, for a boy of sound faculties, naturally increases the attractiveness of not working, and Billy’s mind was perfectly sound.” To order, visit www.berrycenterbookstore.com 1 [ wendell berry ] The Farm Wendell Berry Hardcover $18.95 A collector’s edition, and the perfect gift for the stalwart Wendell Berry fan. First printed in 1995 by Gray Zeitz of the beloved Larkspur Press in Monterey, Kentucky, this gift edition is a beautiful reproduction of Wendell Berry’s book-length poem, illustrated with the original drawings by Carolyn Whitesel. The Wild Birds: Six Stories of the Port William Membership Wendell Berry Paperback $16.95 As part of Counterpoint’s celebration of Kentucky author Wendell Berry comes this reissue of his 1986 classic, The Wild Birds: Six Stories of the Port William Membership. Those stories include “Thicker Than Liquor”, “Where Did They Go?”, “It Wasn’t Me”, “The Boundary”, “That Distant Land”, and the titular “The Wild Birds.” Spanning more than three decades, from 1930 to 1967, these wonderful stories follow Wheeler Catlett, and reintroduce readers to the beloved people who live in Berry’s fictional town of Port William, Kentucky. What I Stand On: The Collected Essays of Wendell Berry 1969-2017 Library of America Boxed Set Hardcover $75.00 Here in full are such landmark books as The Unsettling of America and Life Is a Miracle, along with generous selections from more than a dozen other volumes, revealing as never before the evolution of Berry’s thoughts and concerns as a farmer, neighbor, citizen, teacher, activist, and eco logical philosopher. Throughout he demonstrates that our existence is always connected to the land, and that even in a modern global economy local farming is essential to the flourishing of our culture, to healthy living and stable communities, and indeed to the continuing survival of the human species. Berry’s essays remain timely, even urgent today, and will resonate with anyone interested in our rela - tionship to the natural world and especially with a younger, politically engaged generation invested in the future welfare of the planet. 2 To order, visit www.berrycenterbookstore.com [ wendell berry ] The Art of Loading Brush: New Agrarian Writings Wendell Berry Paperback $16.95 Wendell Berry’s profound critique of American culture has entered its sixth decade, and in this gathering he reaches with deep devotion toward a long view of agrarian philosophy. The Art of Loading Brush is an energetic mix of essays, stories, and a poem, which explore agrarian ideals as they present themselves historically and as they might apply to our work today. Filled with insights and new revelations from a mind thorough in its considerations and careful in its presentations, The Art of Loading Brush is a necessary and timely collection. Think Little Wendell Berry Paperback $10.00 First published in 1972, “Think Little” is cultural critic and agrarian Wendell Berry at his best: prescient about the dire environmental consequences of our mentality of greed and exploitation, yet hopeful that we will recognize war and oppression and pollution not as separate issues, but aspects of the same. “Think Little” is presented here alongside one of Berry’s most popular and personal essays, “A Native Hill.” This gentle essay of recollection is told alongside a poetic lesson in geo - graphy, as Berry explains at length and in detail, that what he stands for is what he stands on. The Memory of Old Jack Wendell Berry Paperback $15.95 Old Jack, born just after the American Civil War and dying in contemporary times, spends one beautiful September day in Port William, his home since birth, remembering. The story tells of the most searing moments of Old Jack’s life, particularly his debt to his sister Nancy and her husband Ben Feltner, Old Jack’s model of what an honorable manhood and strength might be. “Few novelists treat both their characters and their read - ers with the kind of respect that Wendell Berry displays in this deeply moving account . The Memory of Old Jack is a slab of rich Americana.”— The New York Times Book Review To order, visit www.berrycenterbookstore.com 3 [ wendell berry ] For the Hog Killing, 1979 Tanya Berry with Introductory Essay by Wendell Berry Hardcover $30.00 “The traditional neighborly work of killing a hog and preparing it as food for humans is either a fine art or a shameful mess. It requires knowledge , experience, skill, good sense, and sympathy,” writes Wendell Berry in the essay portion of this book. In November 1979 as in years before, neighborly families gathered to do one of the ceremonious jobs of farm life: hog killing. Tanya Berry had been given a camera by New Farm magazine to photograph Kentucky farmers at work, and for two days at the farm of Owen and Loyce Flood in Henry County, she captured this culmination of a year’s labor raising livestock. Here, in the resulting photographs, published for the first time, the American agrarian tradition is shown at its most harmonious, with strong men and women toiling with shared purpose towards a common wealth. “This book of Tanya Berry's fine and honest photographs, and Wendell's essay, are a snapshot of farm life at its rawest in the 1970s. They capture an honest moment that tells us as much about the world we live in now as it does about the world it shows us from the recent past. What a strange world we have made when we have hidden these things and handed them over to strangers.” ―James Rebanks, author of The Illustrated Herdwick Shepherd and The Shepherd’s Life “This careful record invites us into the space of community, one that we are too often removed far from. This quiet visual poetry honors the transfer of life to sus - tenance. Herein lies a knowing I hope will not be lost on us.” ―Roger May, photographer, writer, and creator of the ‘Looking at Appalachia’ project. 4 To order, visit www.berrycenterbookstore.com [ wendell berry ] The Peace of Wild Things Wendell Berry Paperback $18.00 Only available in the United Kingdom and at The Book - store at The Berry Center.